


A Gesture of Kindness

by dweetwise



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Crack Treated Seriously, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Toxic survivors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25405576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dweetwise/pseuds/dweetwise
Summary: Zarina can't just stand by and watch someone be bullied, even if that person is the enemy.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	A Gesture of Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> for a tumblr prompt of zarina befriending the nurse

Hearing yet another wail from the Nurse echoing across the map, Zarina looks up from her generator into the misty grounds of the asylum. The match had surely been going on for nearly ten minutes already, and the teleporting killer had yet to down any of the survivors.

Finishing up the repairs on her generator, Zarina starts navigating towards the sound of the screeches. On her way, she doesn’t spot a single one of her teammates on any of the generators, and frowns in irritation that the killer had apparently decided to farm with the others without anyone deeming it necessary to inform her.

“Forgot about the new chick again, huh?” she mutters to herself, already having had some trouble fitting in with the rowdy group of survivors and their already established dynamic.

Zarina finally reaches what seems to be the center for the commotion, arriving at the shack where Feng, Nea and David are running around in circles with the killer teleporting through the structure, landing a hit on David who the girls then immediately begin patching up right in front of the killer’s face. Zarina huffs out an annoyed breath that her assumptions were correct, turning away from the spectacle and fully intending to go elsewhere and refuse to participate in the others’ dumb little game, when…

“Oi, over ‘ere ya cunt!” David taunts, causing Zarina to clench her fists and whip around, ready to give the asshole Brit a piece of her mind for insulting her—

Only to see the still injured David pointing his flashlight in the Nurse’s face, prolonging the killer’s already painful looking fatigue state. Zarina swallows her misdirected anger and takes a more thorough look at the events unfolding at the shack.

She sees Feng Min get right up in the killer’s face, doing her stupid butt dance, while Nea chain blinds the killer with her own flashlight, rendering her useless for a few more seconds. The killer takes a wild swing in Nea’s direction, but the street artist sidesteps.

“Ooh, big swing!” Nea mocks, clicky-clicking her flashlight and moonwalking around the Nurse while the killer recovers from her miss. 

“Baby killer, baby killer!” Feng’s high-pitched laugh echoes through the area as the gamer feigns vaulting the shack window, causing the Nurse’s bonesaw to uselessly hit the wood with a dull ‘thunk’.

“Couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with that aim—” David taunts from the shack entrance, making the Nurse quickly blink to him. David dashes through the pallet, avoiding the hit and proceeds to throw down the piece of wood on the killer, flashlight at the ready and already pointing at the Nurse. “Baited ya, bitch!”

“She’s so boosted!” Nea laughs, moving into position to reset the pallet in the blinded killer’s face while Feng injects a healing syringe into David’s shoulder. When the Nurse finally recovers from the combination of the fatigue, stun and blinds, only to have the now upright pallet be slammed right back in her face, Zarina decides enough is enough.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Zarina demands, approaching the scene.

“Hey Zarina! Look at this baby killer!” Feng says, obnoxiously pointing at the stunned Nurse.

“Shouldn’t you be doing gens?”

“Don’t get yer knickers in a twist, we’re just horsin’ around,” David grunts, rolling his shoulder from the sting of the syringe needle.

“But _why_?” Zarina asks, shooting a glare in Nea’s direction where the Swede is once again blinding the killer with her flashlight. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“No offense newbie, but maybe you should go find a gen and leave this to us, yeah?” Nea says, a cocky smirk on her lips.

That moment, the Nurse manages to get control over her movements and executes a precise teleport to an injured David, only to have the syringe take effect a split second before the hit and fully heal his wounds, merely causing him to get injured again. Zarina thinks she hears the Nurse groaning in defeat, and she doesn’t blame her. With Nea sprinting right back up to the killer, flashlight in hand, and Feng running after David ready to tank a hit, the Nurse readies another blink and, to everyone’s surprise, teleports away in the direction of the main building.

“LMAO she gave up!” Feng laughs, the sound grating on Zarina’s nerves, as she begins patching up David.

“Let’s go after her!” Nea suggests.

“NO!” Zarina yells, absolutely _done_ with her fellow survivors’ bullshit against the clearly struggling killer. “You’ve already won! Don’t you have any empathy?” she scolds the trio.

“Oh _I’m sorry_ princess, is the taaxic flashlight against your wittle journalist’s ethics?” Nea mocks, fake pouting.

“We’ve put of with ‘er shite for years, least she can do is take a couple pallets in tha face,” David grumbles.

“Yeah _you_ try versing a five blink Nurse with a mori and tell us how fair and balanced that is,” Feng says, hands on her hips.

“Whatever, that’s your problem,” Zarina says, not about to entertain the trio about whatever grudges they seem to be holding. “Just do the fucking gens and leave.”

With that, Zarina makes her way to the main building, thankful that the others seem to stay behind, at least for now. She feels compelled to apologize to the killer on her so-called friends’ behalf, once again trusting her strong moral compass to guide her to the right decisions. Before long she finds the Nurse in one of the rooms on the second floor of the asylum, sitting on a windowsill with an old photo frame in her hands.

“Umm… miss killer? Excuse me?” Zarina makes her presence known, peering in through the door frame.

“You didn’t have to intervene, girl,” the Nurse says with unexpected softness and clarity in her voice. She looks almost serene, ominous heartbeat gone, sitting primly in front of the window and torn dress flowing gently from a breeze blowing through the derelict wall.

“I know, it’s… I couldn’t just watch. I’m sorry about them, they’re—”

“It’s fine; truly. I understand,” she says, looking down at the photo again. “I haven’t exactly shown them mercy in the past, I would not expect them to act different.”

“Are you… okay?” Zarina asks, cautiously approaching. The Nurse sighs.

“This place, it… brings back memories I’d rather forget. I feel my focus slipping and my head is just not in it today.”

“The others said you used to be more powerful—or p-perhaps just more ruthless, before…?”

“I suppose that’s true,” the Nurse chuckles. “There was a time where I lost myself completely, the entity filling my mind with hatred. Now… I’m weaker, more often a disappointment to it, but… perhaps it’s for the best.”

“Umm… not to point out the obvious, but—don’t you think it might help to take the bag off of your head so you could see better?”

“You’d offer advice to me, an enemy? A rather peculiar survivor,” the Nurse says, fondness in her voice. “As for the matter, I am able to see just fine, courtesy of the entity. Hiding my face is a choice, one of the few I still have. I—” her voice cracks.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up a touchy subject.”

“What a curious one you are. Never give up that fire,” she says. “As for covering my head… he always loved seeing me smile,” she says, fondly stroking a finger over the picture, before handing the frame to Zarina, taking her completely off guard as she fumbles to grab the item.

In the frame is a picture of a happy couple on their wedding day, both smiling brightly and embracing each other. The man looks like a proper old-time gentleman, complete with a top hat and silly mustache. The woman is gorgeous, her pale skin and white gown a stark contrast to her fiery red hair and deep emerald green eyes.

“Is this you?” Zarina asks, slightly taken aback, reminded of the fact that the killers probably used to be normal people, just like her.

“It was the happiest day of my life,” the Nurse says wistfully. “That was his favorite photo. He said it brought out my eyes, he... he loved my eyes, said they were a reflection of my soul, of our happiness. Which is why I can’t let anyone see my face.”

“Because now you’re… unhappy?” Zarina asks, trying to understand.

“Because I don’t want anyone to look into my eyes and see the madness that consumed me,” the Nurse whispers.

Zarina is at a loss for words, intrigued about the remorseful killer’s past but not wanting to pry further. She stares at the photo and tries to imagine how the cute, carefree woman in the picture could have ever turned into a bloodthirsty killer.

The sound of the exit gates being powered snaps her out of her thoughts, finally handing the frame back to its owner.

“Thanks for telling me all this,” Zarina says. “Can’t have been easy, what you’ve went through.”

“I should be thanking you, for indulging a silly woman her tales,” the Nurse says. “Feel free to stop by, should you happen to wander into this realm from the campfire. I don’t often linger here, but… maybe it would not be so bad, had I company.”

“You know, I might just take you up on that offer,” Zarina says, offering a small smile. The sound of a gate opening and the end game triggering reminds her that she’s on a time limit. “Shi—shoot, I’ve gotta run. See you around, uh… ms. Nurse?”

“Please, call me Sally,” the killer says, primly bowing her head. “Zarina, was it? Do be careful out there. Your kindness might just be the end of you.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad, as far as causes of death go,” Zarina quips, offering a cheeky grin before sprinting off the find the gate.


End file.
